Ukraine Aid, French Landslide, White Nationalism, Books, Gays, Manly Men

  • PZ Myers has a suggestion on who could have played Putin in a movie about the invasion of Ukraine. If only the perfect player was alive.
     
  • Infidel753 speculates intelligently on what Putin really wants: a world based on past, way past, international ethics.
     
  • At The Moderate Voice Anthony Stahelski believes the unexpected hardship experienced by Putin’s Russia, and the unexpected world unity in opposition, serves as a warning to other dictators. He suggests we expand on that unity with even bolder action.
     
  • This week President Biden got the legislation he asked Congress to give him providing lots more aid to Ukraine. Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit names the 10 members who voted against Ukraine. Procedure had to be followed first. 220 Republicans voted against having aid to Ukraine come to a vote at all. They were against helping Ukraine right before they were for it.
     
  • The Palmer Report explains why the landslide election of Emmanuel Macron in the election for President of France, beating Putin’s candidate, may be good news for our own President Biden.
     
  • In Hackwhackers we get a peek under the ideological hood of White Nationalism and how it has become the prototype for the Republican future.
     
  • In Letters from an American, historian Heather Cox Richardson sees a traditional pattern of democratic vs autocratic governance creating opportunities for two right-wing, antidemocratic ideologies competing for control of the Republican party.
     
  • Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson seems impatient with conservative extremism:

  • Nojo points out the good news. All the conservative book banning won’t work. There are too many alternate sources of knowledge.
     
    The bad news about book banning comes from the good news. Conservatives won’t stop there because they can’t.
     
  • The Propaganda Professor has what amounts to case studies. “Left leaning” media has become complicit in spreading right wing agitprop, mostly because those on the right side of the political spectrum have become expert at spinning issues out of non-issues.
     
  • A while back, the Department of Homeland Security noticed that a lot of Putin disinformation was coming into social media from Russian hirelings pretending to be Americans. Sometimes the purpose was to get Americans to hate each other. Sometimes it was to get Americans to do crazy unhealthy things based on made up stories about Covid, vaccines, and bogus cures (Drink your own urine!!). Often the purpose was to spread Russian anti-American propaganda. It had all become a threat to US Security.
     
    That wasn’t the only use of disinformation. Border traffickers were broadcasting bogus stories to get more and more immigrants to flee violence in their home countries and come to the United States.
     
    So Homeland Security established the Disinformation Governance Board to expose the lies with documented truth. It became the source of warnings about Russian disinformation before Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The this-is-what-the-Russian-trolls-are-about-to-say announcements, just hours before Russian media said them, turned out to be extremely effective in rallying the entire world.
     
    Naturally, some American conservatives became outraged. Still are.
    They charge censorship. It isn’t.
    A few on the more extreme edge anticipate conservatives being persecuted or imprisoned for their thoughts.
     
    For example our own Missouri Senator Josh Hawley:
    Homeland Security has decided to make policing Americans’ speech its top priority.
    Sheeesh!
     
    Frances Langum notices one aspect that has the Fox Network especially worked up. Brian Kilmeade is mad as hell because the first Executive Director of the Board took the job while pregnant. How dare they put a pregnant woman in charge!

Continue reading “Ukraine Aid, French Landslide, White Nationalism, Books, Gays, Manly Men”

Iron Beam, Ukraine, War Humor, Putin, DeSantis v Mickey v Math, Debates

Continue reading “Iron Beam, Ukraine, War Humor, Putin, DeSantis v Mickey v Math, Debates”

Work Schedules

Ukraine Strikes Back, Hitler Worship, Jan 6, Slavery History, Immigration

  • Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit points to largely unnoticed, subtle, evidence that Putin’s flagship in the Black Sea was sunk by Ukrainian missiles, not by some Russian accident, as Putinites would have us believe.
     
  • What goes on in the bully-boy mind of Vlad?
    He sends his military to an easy takeover of Ukraine. They get bloodied in one battle after another.
    He sends threats to keep NATO countries from supplying Ukraine. Their transfer of weapons accelerates.
    He sends his flagship, the pride and joy of the Russian navy, to shell Ukraine. Ukraine sinks the ship.
     
    In Hackwhackers, Vlad uses intimidation to keep Finland and Sweden out of NATO. Guess what happens!
     
  • Must seem like this:

  • Nojo finds what is possible to find on what ordinary Russians are discovering about Putin’s Ukraine invasion, what they believe, and why.
     
  • M. Bouffant at Web of Evil has the links as yet another Russian who dares to speak up gets harassed, poisoned, and finally arrested in Moscow.
     
  • Infidel753 has refrained from extrapolating Putin’s genocidal ways into any characterizations about rightists in other countries. Putin has seemed fairly close to uniquely evil. But Marine Le Pen in France and a few public figures in the US force a course correction.
     
  • In Letters from an American, historian Heather Cox Richardson acknowledges the anniversary of the death of Abraham Lincoln and reviews the similarities in threats to the Republic, then and now, the foremost of which was and is fear of democracy.
     
  • There are receipts, then there is proof, and then there is this. tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors has more than documentation of what we pretty much already know. But this seems to seal the deal:
    Audio tapes of instructions issued to January 6 insurrectionists.
     
  • The Palmer Report contains a bit of well founded speculation about a new DOJ indictment and a prominent public figure who may be in legal jeopardy.
     
  • Grung_e_Gene takes a glance at an open push along a pathway to removing any democratic parts from democratic republic and tries to put a laptop into perspective.
     
  • Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged decides that, yes, you can sometimes take an incident involving an incidental public official and, from it, characterize the non-incidental nature of a political party. For example someone who lectures homeless people that they should model their lives after Adolf Hitler.
     
    One excerpt:
    When someone takes a look at the life story of Adolf Hitler, the takeaway should not actually be that, say what you will about the man, he was a real go‑getter.
     
  • Frances Langum takes notes as Jimmy Kimmel scores against Trump and Greene but completely stomps Mr. Gaetz into the ground.
     
    My thought:

Continue reading “Ukraine Strikes Back, Hitler Worship, Jan 6, Slavery History, Immigration”

Putin War Crimes, COVID, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Clarence Thomas

Let’s begin with a few moments of tearful joy:

Continue reading “Putin War Crimes, COVID, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Clarence Thomas”

Putin, Ukraine, Planning, Authoritarian, Tuck, Biden, KBJ, Slap, Covid, Madison

  • Putin propagandists accuse Ukraine of an air strike on a fuel depot within Russian borders. Green Eagle raises an obvious point.
     
  • Not all Russians buy into Putin lies:

  • Nojo finds a cute little cartoon video created by a Ukrainian girl about a tractor capturing and pulling a tank. Everyone singing and dancing as they roll merrily along. War enters everything.
     
  • Workforce managers have been boring their yawning staff members long before I became elderly, with useful aphorisms like Fail to Plan = Plan to Fail! And now, Putin ends up proving them right as rain!
     
    Bastard!
     
    Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit sees one reason Ukraine has been so successful so far in so kicking an invading bully in the tail. In several years of preparing for the conflict that Putin planned and Ukrainians anticipated, Ukrainians were astonishingly smart, and Putin’s group were comically witless.
     
  • Infidel753 suggests one source for Putin miscalculation. Intelligence failures can be caused by a single characteristic pretty much baked in to power grasping authoritarianism.
     
  • Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger points to an extreme percentage of the world living under authoritarian regimes and suggests an overarching reason Ukraine’s fight against Putin’s invasion has become especially important.
     
  • tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors has the numbers. It seems Tucker Carlson is unable to convince even his most ardent followers that Vlad Putin is the good guy in the Ukraine invasion.
     
  • There are other lessons to be learned as well: like how to be an authentic human:

  • In News Corpse President Biden is derisive about Peter Doocy’s demand that the President publicly reveal strategic contingency plans about what the US might do if Putin uses chemical weapons in Ukraine.
     
  • Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged explains that, in hearing President Biden’s “ad-lib” about Putin, we may want to keep in mind the target audience.
     
  • In Letters from an American, noted historian Heather Cox Richardson examines economic news. With no help, no votes, just foot dragging opposition from Republicans, President Biden presides over astonishingly fast job creation and record low unemployment. Inflation is high, but appears to be a global problem, not endemic to the US.
     
  • Republicans have been on this path at least since those wayback days when I was just a lad. Frances Langum reports they are still at it, as they once more unveil plans to slash Social Security and Medicare.
     
    And that is not all we may experience:

  • Mitch McConnell demands that Republicans oppose Ketanji Brown Jackson for the Supreme Court. Scottie is irritated at the lack of principle or even a coherent phony argument for his opposition.
     
  • Usually indecisive Senator from Maine will be voting for Ketanji Brown Jackson after all. Andy Borowitz reports that Senate Republicans are planning to punish Susan Collins by making her sit next to Rand Paul.
     
  • PZ Myers watches a police raid on the home of an anti-abortion activist, where they discover… Holy Mother of God!!.

Continue reading “Putin, Ukraine, Planning, Authoritarian, Tuck, Biden, KBJ, Slap, Covid, Madison”

War Crimes, Putin, Russian FSB Revolt, Zelensky, Ketanji Brown Jackson

Continue reading “War Crimes, Putin, Russian FSB Revolt, Zelensky, Ketanji Brown Jackson”